Magento Marketing Tools To Convert Users Into Buyers

As you’ve seen in the past, we’ve taken the time to really explain and highlight all the fantastic things that Magento can do for your online store. Most of the things we’re continually bragging about are related to marketing features, so let’s start there with a closer look.

Coupons In Magento

The great thing about coupons is their multi-purpose approach. New product? Offer coupons. Not-so-popular product? Offer a coupon. Looking to attract new or repeat business? Offer coupons…you get the point. Magento starts by allowing you to do just that, discounts and free shipping in Magento are just a few of the things that you can delegate to customers on your own terms. You can choose to do it over a specific holiday weekend, during short months, use it to target specific customers and users, or even create in-store coupons for mobile users. To enable coupons for your store, it’s just a few simple clicks in the admin panel:

Quantity Discount & Tiered Pricing

Magento allows you to set up tier pricing for a particular product (like a watch), apply it to a specific store (for example, just in Spain), or even specific customer groups (wholesalers vs retailers). Tier pricing can be such a useful tool that comes as a default Magento offering, and it’s a great way to reward customers who often order large quantities at a time by reducing the price. Not only does this help their wallet, but it’s also more likely to motivate customers to return and do the same thing again…and again…and again.

Using the tiered pricing template, you can also define a special price of a product for selected customer groups if necessary. Combine this with coupons, and you’re guaranteed to see some results not just in your inventory, but in the number of interactions you can muster from your store. And it’s simple to apply, just put a “1” in the Quantity field and the corresponding price of the item, select a customer group, and hit the Save button. And, voila – special price is added!

In the admin area, the interface looks like this:

And on the storefront, you’ll see this:

Related Products, Upsell And Cross-Sell In Magento

People love to have choices, it’s one of the best things about going shopping, or walking into a giant pastry shop. We also sometimes like the idea of gently being nudged in the right direction, bakeries offering a 2 for 1, or “freshly baked” signs conjure up thoughts of getting something a little extra than we should, why not do the same for your customers? Product suggestions are a great way to nudge your clientele in the right direction, and they can be based on products they’re buying or viewing, so you’ll be guaranteed to see a real change in some of those sales numbers.

The best part is, all of these options come standard in the default Magento offering, with no real extra bells and whistles necessary. Any of these options (related products, upsell and cross-sell in Magento) can all be added with the flick of a switch.

However, even though these three options serve the same goal, there are a few differences between them.

Magento related products. These are products that have some kind of correlation to what you’re buying, either in the same category, or a supplementary product. Typically they’re offered on the product page, and they’re aimed at getting customers to buy extra items in addition to the one they’ve selected. The great thing about related products is that a checkbox is located near each of the items, which makes it even easier to add to their cart.

Up-sell products. These can also be found on the product page. They’re usually items that can be bought instead of the selected product. Sometimes it can take a bit of coaxing, but these items are usually a bit more expensive or are tied to higher margins. This also means they’re often designed a bit more for the merchant than they are the customer, but also benefits customers who like to enjoy the more beautiful things in life.

Cross-sell products. The idea here is to encourage customers to buy something they’d initially had no intention to buy. While this can be the more difficult of the three when faced with a choice, who are we as humans to deny at least giving it a minute to consider. Cross-selling is one last push to try and convince someone to increase their cart order before pushing the buy now button.

Newsletters

There is a native newsletters option available in the default Magento version so you can best take advantage of creating email marketing campaigns that work for you. It also needs to be said that newsletters are a great way to keep customers interested and up to speed on your brand, just make sure your content stays up to date and relevant.

Newsletters in Magento are elementary. Not only do they give you flexibility in programming (anything from HTML to WYSIWG editor can be used to create), but it still allows you to create appealing and straightforward templates that your customers will love. A few clicks behind the scenes in the admin panel will have you up and running in no time.

But wait, there’s more. If you’re not a coding genius but still want your newsletters to look high-end and professional, you can also connect a 3rd party newsletter system, such as Mailchimp and Magento store; another classic staple among email marketers.

MailChimp

It may not be an entire suite of built-in marketing features, but playing around with and implementing some of these ideas will definitely have a positive effect on your sales when done correctly.

Despite some fascinating Magento marketing tools, there are some even cooler and more diverse options that you won’t find in Magento’s default bag of toys, but that doesn’t mean they still won’t add value to your marketing strategy.

Blog For Online Store

Blogs are great because they help with brand identity, customers can get to know the players behind the curtain, oh and they majorly boost traffic. What better way to let customers get to know you than by taking that brand identity and tone you’ve worked so hard to foster, and blast it through the interwebs. What other reason could you need?

Now, depending on how little or how much you want to use blogging as your marketing strategy, there are two main options to consider. The first is using a blog extension on your store, or you can integrate blog into website with WordPress. Just like anything else, both options have their ups and downs, good and bad. Lucky for you, we’ve created a whole article on which option to choose from based on your needs at the MailChimp post.

Natural Life

Loyalty Programs And Reward Points

Studies have shown us time and again that acquiring new customers is anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining and growing existing ones. This especially is where a loyalty program system comes into play, as these kinds of reward points and offerings are what keep existing customers coming back.

On the official Magento extension marketplace, there are a plethora of extensions available related to reward points, like over 70 of them. Most of them have similar beginnings where customers are rewarded with points for highly regarded actions like a successful registration, order placement, writing product reviews, etc. In some of these cases, the rewards combine the form of points, extra discounts, gift free shipping, even free products sometimes; the choice is yours.

Magento Marketplace

Cart Abandonment Emails

Sometimes websites crash or distractions may come into place that prevents us from the follow through on our orders. However, according to the Baymart Institute, the average abandoned cart rate is 69%. While some of those people may just be virtual window shoppers, that’s a really high number to risk leaving to chance.

Whatever the reason behind shopping cart abandonment, it’s definitely worth a try to rescue some of those lost opportunities and send those potential customers a follow-up email about their not-quite-completed order. Add an extra edge to this offer by combining it with something like a coupon or a discount and drive those customers back to your site to give that purchase a second shot.

Bliss

As with the loyalty programs, there are a whole bunch of abandoned cart extensions to choose from on Magento Marketplace.

Some of the suggestions here may work perfectly with your Magento store, but their efficiency always depends on a particular brand and its needs. Moreover, the internet these days is always changing, always adapting, so solutions get old quickly. To not ride the bench, you have to keep your eyes on the ball and be as flexible as the market is.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns feel free to reach out to us. Our development team has never backed down from a challenge.